The Cat Sitter and the Canary

by John Clement

  McKenzie said, “Tom, can we have a minute?”

  I heard a man’s voice from inside. “Sure, I’m done in here for now anyway.”

  McKenzie stepped back and the crime scene photographer I’d seen before emerged. There were two cameras hanging from his neck and a small spiral notebook tucked into his breast pocket. He drew McKenzie aside and muttered something under his breath.

  She said, “Yeah, let me bag it up first, and then let’s get closeup shots of both the front and back.”

  I glanced up at the Kramer house. It was dark on the third floor, but the curtains in one of the windows had a pale bluish glow, as if lit from within by a television, and just then the curtains parted open and a woman appeared.

  She had on a white blouse, or perhaps a nightgown, with a very low-cut opening. It plunged almost to her waist, and even from this distance I could tell its edges were scalloped and embroidered with what looked like lacy flowers. I couldn’t quite see her face, but I was pretty sure I recognized her hair immediately. It was long, jet black, and perfectly straight—exactly the way I remembered it when her face had been pasted all over the tabloids and local news shows.

  It was Elba Kramer.

  I think I must have been in some sort of catatonic state, because the first thing that came to mind was that I might be able to get her attention and let her know I hadn’t forgotten our meeting, which of course would have been insane, given the circumstances. Luckily, before I could do anything stupid—like wave or call out her name—the curtains fell back and she disappeared.

  The crime scene photographer stepped off the porch and took a couple of pictures of the yard and then moved down the side of the house closest to Ms. Kramer’s, taking pictures of just about everything the entire way.

  McKenzie turned, her expression somber, and said, “You might want to take a couple of deep breaths.”

  I didn’t follow her advice. My palms were sweaty, and I could feel my heart pounding, but for some reason I wanted her to think I was fine, that I wasn’t the fading flower she assumed, that I’d seen a dead body before, and that I couldn’t imagine why she suddenly thought I was so delicate.

  But I knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.

  I think I’d been holding on to the possibility that I’d imagined the whole thing, because when I stepped up to the doorway and saw the body again, my heart sank. It was still there, surrounded by blood-soaked magazines and pieces of junk mail, dressed in a man’s three-piece suit, light blue, with a green-and-yellow striped tie. There was a black leather belt with a square silver buckle around the waist, and the shoes were black leather too. They seemed newly polished, and I noticed both shoelaces were neatly tied in tight bows.

  McKenzie stepped carefully so as not to disturb any of the mail on the floor, and then knelt down next to the body.

  She said, “Ready?”

  I clenched my fists and nodded. With one gloved hand, she reached out and gently lifted one corner of the scarf.

  I gasped.

  The girl had short, dark hair. Her face was round and white as snow, with a delicate nose and lips turned a pale shade of lilac. Her mouth was hanging open, as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of an unexpected surprise, and her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. She had a handlebar mustache drawn with what looked like dark brown eyebrow pencil above her lips, and there were long sideburns drawn on either side of her face.

  Despite all that, I recognized her right away. “Sara…”

  McKenzie turned to me, her eyes wide. “What?”

  I stammered. “I’m not sure. She looks like someone … the girl that works at the food stand at the beach pavilion, but her hair’s different. It’s blond, almost the exact same color as mine, and she has a pierced eyebrow.”

  McKenzie leaned in a little closer. At the far edge of the girl’s right eyebrow were two tiny, almost imperceptible holes, one above and one just below.

  She said, “Do you see that?”

  I nodded.

  She lifted the scarf a little higher, and now I could see the girl wore a short, dark wig. It had been pulled to one side. Underneath was a stocking cap, covering locks of light blond hair.

  I shook my head slowly. “It’s her.”

  McKenzie let the the scarf fall back in place. “I’m thinking perhaps she was on her way to some kind of costume party … but there’s one more thing.”

  She lifted the opposite corner of the scarf.

  “This…”

  Peeking out from under the scarf, just above the breast pocket, was a small yellow rectangle about three inches wide and two inches tall. At first, I thought it might have been a business card, but it was folded in half, like one of those placeholders they use at fancy dinners. It was held to the lapel of the jacket with what looked like a hat pin, at least five inches long, at the tip of which was a glistening black pearl, roughly the size of a green pea.

  I said, “What is it?”

  She motioned me closer. “You tell me.”

  At the center of the card, written in neat cursive handwriting, were five words …

  Just then, a strange sensation washed over me. My body felt like rubber, and the ground seemed suddenly unreliable, as if I were standing on a pier that had come unhooked from its mooring and was slowly moving out with the tide.

  I whispered, “What does it say?”

  But I didn’t need her to tell me. I could see it as clear as rain.

  It said, SEE YOU IN HELL, DIXIE.

  10

  I woke with a dull throb camped out in the back of my skull, and my lips felt as dry and cracked as a couple of peanut shells. Without even opening my eyes, I knew Ella Fitzgerald was in her favorite position: stretched across my chest with her paws tucked under my chin. Outside, the birds were calling out tentatively to one another, and for a few blissful moments I thought of nothing but the thrum of Ella’s soft purrs, mixed with the rhythmic swoosh of the waves rolling in on the beach down below.

  It had not been a good night.

  I hadn’t slept well—not a big surprise, considering the circumstances. Every time I came close to falling asleep, a glowing yellow rectangle would float into view, as if it were seared onto the inside of my eyelids, and then I’d watch helplessly as an invisible hand etched a message across the middle of it in delicate curving script, as if hand-lettered with a feathered quill …

  SEE YOU IN HELL, DIXIE.

  Next, Sara Potts’s face would materialize, her blue eyes peering over the card, wide and imploring, and then my heart would start racing and I’d bolt up in a sweat. That happened over and over again, to the point where I no longer knew if I was awake or dreaming.

  I’d spent the entire night checking the long window that runs along the top of the wall opposite my bed, and now when I opened my eyes, I could just make out the vaguest hint of light beginning to overtake the darkness outside. I ran my hand down Ella’s back.

  “Finally,” I whispered.

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. She said, “Mmmeep.”

  Ella got her name from the jazzy scatting noises she makes, and it fits her personality perfectly. She’s regal and classy, but with a true rebel’s spirit. She’s a calico Persian mix, meaning mostly Persian, but her coat has distinct blocks of vivid russet brown, snow white, and charcoal black. She was originally a gift to me from a client that had to leave town unexpectedly, but it didn’t take her long to figure out that all the good stuff comes out of Michael and Paco’s kitchen. She loves me, I’m sure of that, but her heart belongs to her daddies.

  I whispered “sorry” to Ella for disturbing her beauty rest and then rolled over to find Gigi watching me from the bedside table. He’d spent the night in an old hamster cage I found in the attic. I’d laid some rag towels on the bottom to make a soft bed for him, and I’d left a bowl of water and some carrot sticks mixed with a little of Ella’s cat kibble in one corner. It wasn’t exactly the palatial digs he was used to, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt him to se
e how the other half lives for a night or two until I could take him back home.

  He blinked and wiggled his nose, which I took to mean he’d had a better night than I had.

  Ella burrowed back under the blankets as I reached out and slipped my fingers through the bars to give Gigi a scratch between his long ears, but he hopped over to the opposite side of the cage. I knew he’d eventually get accustomed to his new surroundings and settle down, but at that point I think he’d had enough human contact for the time being.

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  I rolled out of bed as quietly as possible and padded into the bathroom, where I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and splashed cold water on my face. I decided I wouldn’t tell anybody about what had happened, at least not until after breakfast. For one, I think I was probably in shock. I just wanted to have as nice and normal a morning as possible, and I knew once they found out, I’d get a barrage of questions. But also, Detective McKenzie had explicitly asked me not to talk about the details of the case until she’d had a chance to thoroughly interview everyone involved. So, for now, I decided to put the whole thing out of my mind.

  I stared at myself in the mirror and examined my bloodshot eyes.

  Easier said than done, I thought.

  My poker face is amateur at best. People who know me can usually tell right off the bat if I’m lying or upset, but given the fact that my memory of the night before was already starting to feel like a distant blur, I thought I might get away with it. I’m pretty sure my poor brain was actively trying to block it all out—starting with the moment I laid eyes on that card pinned to Sara Potts’s lapel. I remembered Detective McKenzie asking if I knew who might have put it there, and I remembered being afraid I might burst into laughter or tears or both, so I just shook my head … No.

  After that, one of the deputies led me back down the driveway to wait while Detective McKenzie went next door to talk to Elba Kramer. My Bronco had been moved farther down the street, closer to the traffic cones, although I didn’t remember giving anybody the key, and then while I was pulling a couple of cardboard cat carriers out of the back, Deputy Morgan told me he’d follow me home—Detective McKenzie didn’t want me driving by myself.

  Normally, I would have objected. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I don’t like being treated like a defenseless pansy. But I was too tired to put up a fight. Either that or I’m a defenseless pansy. I just nodded and told him I had to take Charlie home first, and then I called our local cat kennel, the Kitty Haven, to see if they might be able to take Franklin for the night. He couldn’t stay at Caroline’s, not with the entire place crawling with crime technicians, and I knew Ella wouldn’t be too thrilled about a sleepover with a cat she’d never met.

  I don’t remember going back inside the house at all, but we must have entered through the side portico. Gigi was huddled in the corner of his cage under a cover of hay. I doubted he’d ever had so many strangers walking around his house in his entire life, but once I had him in my arms and cradled in a soft towel, he seemed to calm down.

  Franklin was hiding under a row of sundresses in Caroline’s walk-in closet. I spotted him right away because his fluffy cream-colored tail was poking out behind a stack of shoe boxes. Luckily, he didn’t put up too much of a fight. As we went back through the living room, I saw a couple more camera flashes from the doorway to the front hall, but I didn’t look back.

  Now, staring at my puffy, sleep-deprived face in the mirror, I dabbed on a little lip gloss and squirted some eyedrops in each eye, though I knew the only real cure was more sleep. After I brushed my teeth and got dressed, I tiptoed back into the bedroom and lifted up one corner of the blanket.

  Ella had moved up to the top of the bed and was stretched out full length across my pillow with her head right next to Ethan’s. His lips were parted slightly, and Ella’s whiskers were brushing against the stubble of his cheek.

  Yes … Ethan.

  The words “yes” and “Ethan” seem to go hand in hand now, but for what seemed like an eternity they’d gone together like oil and water, which isn’t saying a thing about Ethan, but it says volumes about me …

  He is my—for lack of a better word—boyfriend. That means a number of things: one, I always know where he is, and for the most part, he always knows where I am. It also means we often spend the night together, always at my place since his apartment looks like it’s inhabited by a gang of bachelor pigs (his words, not mine—I’ve actually never seen it). He runs a one-man law firm, Crane & Sons, which he inherited from his grandfather.

  The first time I laid eyes on him, I knew I was in big trouble. He’s one quarter Seminole, with high cheekbones and a square jaw, eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate, and lashes so thick they make his eyes look rimmed with kohl. He’s a good foot taller than me, with jet-black hair that brushes past his shoulders and a smile that never fails to make me a little weak in the knees.

  If all that sounds a little too cliché for your taste, then you understand my problem exactly. In almost every category, he’s too good to be true, like a character from a cheap romance novel or a fairy tale. There was a time I believed in fairy tales … but I’m not so sure anymore.

  Six years ago—six years, one month, and three days to be exact—my husband, Todd, and my daughter, Christy, were both killed in a freak car accident. An old man accidentally ran over them in the parking lot at our local grocery store. Apparently, he thought he had shifted into reverse. He was wrong.

  Todd was thirty. Christy was three.

  It feels funny to just blurt it out like that, like items on a to-do list or a PowerPoint presentation, but there’s really no other way. Sometimes, it seems like it happened on another planet, light-years away, and sometimes it seems like it’s happening right now, right here.

  At any rate, after Todd and Christy’s funeral, I became a blithering idiot. Michael and Paco took care of me the best they could, bringing me food and keeping me relatively clean, but for almost a year I barely got out of bed. My commanding officer at the sheriff’s department, Sergeant Woodrow Owens, was probably more patient with me than he should have been, but eventually—and I’ll spare you all the ugly details—it became patently clear that I couldn’t be trusted to wear a deputy badge, let alone carry a loaded gun around in public. The department asked me to resign, and so I did.

  For the longest time, even though I knew he hadn’t done it on purpose, I held that old man responsible for taking my family and my life away. I kept him prisoner in a very dark place inside me, my heart like a jail cell. It took a long time before I finally set him free. I don’t remember his name. I don’t know if he’s still alive, and I don’t want to know. I’m trying to forgive him.

  Todd had been a deputy too. We worked together. We had a good life. We had a little house in Sarasota, not more than fifteen minutes from where I live now, with a nice yard and a little vegetable garden. We’d stagger our shifts so most of the time one of us was home with Christy while the other was at work. We had a babysitter when we needed it, a sweet teenage girl who lived a couple doors down, but I don’t remember her name either. In fact, I’ve blocked out most of my memories from that time. I’m sure they’re still bouncing around in my head somewhere, but it’s easier not to think about it. And loads better for my sanity as well.

  Pet sitting just kind of fell into my lap … literally. Michael and Paco had a friend who was looking for someone to take care of her cat while she was out of town. They told her I did a little pet sitting on the side—which of course was a bald-faced lie, but I think they were starting to worry I’d end up in a straitjacket if they didn’t come up with something for me to do. It took them a while to talk me into it, but eventually I found myself sitting on the woman’s balcony, in a sprawling luxury condo overlooking Sarasota Bay, with a fluffy cat named Rudy sitting in my lap and gazing lovingly into my eyes.

  He took care of me for two weeks, and the rest is history.

  I like deali
ng with animals better than humans. For one, a dog might bite your neighbor or dig up your lawn, but he’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, no questions asked. And a cat might pee on your pillow, but she’ll never betray you.

  Ethan stirred in his sleep, and I realized I’d been standing there staring at him for God knows how long, playing through all my old memories like a sappy after-school special. I think seeing that poor girl’s lifeless body must have jostled something deep inside me, knocking loose all the ghosts of the things I hold dear and sending them flying out.

  I knew Ethan didn’t have to be at work for at least another hour, and since Ella’s only job is keeping the mice at bay, her schedule is completely flexible. I knelt down next to the bed and gave her a little kiss on the nose, and then I gave Ethan a little kiss on the nose too, and then I tiptoed out and closed the bedroom door softly behind me.

  I have to admit—there’s something nice about having a man in your bed. It puts a slightly different spin on things. I could even go out on a limb and say: Yes, I like knowing Ethan’s there snoozing away on the pillow next to mine. Yes, I like thinking he’ll be there when I come home at the end of the day. And, yes, I like pretending I’m not alone in the world.

  Is that love?

  I don’t know.

  Let’s change the subject …

  11

  In the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of orange juice and leaned against the counter, staring at the off-white coating of the refrigerator door. I could feel my stomach turning into a nervous ball of knots.

  It felt more like a dream than a memory—kneeling over that poor girl’s body and seeing my name written on that card. How was it even possible? And who could have done such a thing? And why? And the man’s suit and the wig and the mustache and sideburns drawn on her face … Who even knew I’d be at Caroline’s house that day? If the person who’d killed Sara Potts had been the person that left that note, then they must have had information about my schedule. They must have known I’d be arriving at Caroline’s house to discover her body … but who?